


Six Complicated Situations

by prairiecrow



Category: A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Knight Rider (1982), Knight Rider 2000, ReBoot (TV), Real Ghostbusters, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Arguing, Culture Shock, Established Relationship, F/M, Falling In Love, Finger Fucking, Forbidden, Future Fic, Height Kink, M/M, Monogamy, Open Relationships, Robot Sex, Romance, Secret Relationship, Voyeurism, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 02:36:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A set of stories on the theme of "never and forever", in six different universes: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, The Real Ghostbusters, ReBoot, Knight Rider 2000, and the "KnightFall" Knight Rider Future AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Julian Bashir/Elim Garak

"Ah…" A breathless gasp of anticipation as a slick grey fingertip, sweetly teasing, ran along Julian's naked gluteal cleft and then slipped inside, to press and circle the most intimate part of him. His erect cock twitched between their bellies and hardened even more, leaking a drop of clear salty pre-ejaculate onto the tunic of his partner. "Oh, _God…_ " 

Garak smiled that sleek enigmatic smile of his and kissed the left ridge of sternocleidomastoid muscle in Julian's throat, which already bore the red imprints of several amorous bites. "Impatient, are we?" he murmured to the man currently straddling his lap with ass bared and thighs wantonly parted and dusky skin agleam with sweat − when they had sex in Garak's quarters, on Garak's couch, the temperature was always turned up to tropical levels. 

Julian closed his eyes and tipped his head back, thinking rather distractedly that he had to get the rest of his uniform off, and soon. Two months ago he couldn't have imagined himself in this position in a million years — not consciously, at any rate. He wasn't attracted to men, never had been, never would be. The things Garak's presence did to his heart rate and limbic system were the result of the Cardassian's thrilling aura of mystery, which communicated more than a hint of both affection and danger where Julian was concerned. All very logical and reasonable and above-board, with nothing bisexual about it, thank you very much. 

But two months ago Garak hadn't been on the verge of dying, and Julian hadn't yet realized just how far he was willing to go to save the man he had lunch with on a weekly basis — or how much else was lurking beneath the surface of his own mind and heart. The revelations had been explosive and, when all was said and done, paradigm-shifting on a number of different levels. 

Like this one, for instance. Garak chuckled against Julian's throat and pressed more firmly with his fingertip, sending a wave of hot sensation racing up Julian's spine from well-sensitized and thoroughly conditioned nerve endings. This time he actually whimpered, rocking his hips back shamelessly: "Please…?" 

"I really must teach you the value of savouring the moment," Garak lamented — but he was crooking his finger and pushing _in_ , searing carnal sensation bursting blood-red behind Julian's eyelids, and as he began to slowly stroke Julian spared a fly-away thought to reflect that although he hadn't seen this coming, there was no way in Hell he was going to give it up now.


	2. Professor Hobby/Gigolo Joe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part of the "One Degree of Separation" universe:
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/series/22856
> 
> Set after "Through a Glass Darkly" and before "The Devil You Know".

"Never thought I'd see the day," Doctor James Drew was stage-whispering to his seat-mate two rows back from Brian Cooper's front row centre position. The solidly built engineer's voice carried remarkably well over the soft lyrical flow of Claude Debussy's _Clair de Lune_ and the general murmur of audience conversation while people waited for the ceremony to begin: "I mean, I knew he was _attached_ to the mecha, but who'd have thought he'd actually put a ring on its finger? If you ask me…" 

"It's a lovely night for it," Tamara Hahn, who was seated on Brian's left, remarked blandly — so clearly as commentary on Drew's monologue that Brian couldn't help but quirk a smile.  

"It is, isn't it?" Brian's wife Cynthia leaned over on Brian's right to address Tamara past his face, her voice a little too earnest: she'd been sick of Drew within five minutes of meeting the man, and was clearly willing to encourage any conversational gambit that drowned out the Englishman's voice. "Absolutely perfect! They couldn't have asked for better weather, and all the lights… it looks like a faerie garden!" 

Brian, who had little taste for decorating either interior or exterior, couldn't help but agree. Professor Hobby and Joe had lucked into a gorgeous property in this country house with its extensive grounds and well-maintained trees, which were currently adorned with tiny white lights that gleamed like fireflies in the gathering indigo twilight. A full moon was rising above the distant treeline to the east, across a view that covered a wide expanse of cultivated English countryside and the warm glow of the local village about five kilometres away, and overhead a sea of stars was beginning to shine. It was a place of beauty and peace — and, at this moment, of keen anticipation among the forty-four guests gathered in the manor's garden, seated on white chairs in front of a low purple-carpeted dais backed by a tall black trellis entwined with cream and scarlet roses in full bloom. 

The roses, Brian knew, were perfectly real: Joe had taken an interest in breeding the flowers shortly after the Orison imprint had fully taken hold, and earlier this afternoon had informed Brian with considerable pride that he'd been creating this floral tableau for months in preparation for the ceremony to come. Pamela Cunningham had made a particular point of admiring them, since she was, it turned out, an orchid aficionado herself with her own carefully tended garden back in Colorado. She'd had a long conversation with Joe on the subject, which only went to show that old rivalries could well and truly be put to rest. 

April Estevez, who was seated on the other side of Tamara, clasped her hands in her lap and almost bounced with happiness. "Oh, it's all so _beautiful!_ " she exclaimed with the enthusiasm that Brian remembered so well, her face alight.  

"And a lot less trouble to manage than our own wedding ceremony," Brian remarked, glancing fondly at Cynthia and reaching down to squeeze her hand. "Two hundred guests and a fist-fight between your Uncle Steve and the —" 

She gave his wrist a good-natured little smack. "Don't you know it's bad luck to discuss past weddings at a current one?"

"Is it?" 

"Or at least it's unconscionably rude, darling. Stop it." 

"It's not a wedding," Tamara pointed out with German punctiliousness. "It has no legal standing." 

"It is in every way that matters," April asserted, her eyes still shining. "And it's about time, too! Of course the Professor couldn't do it while he was still at Cybertronics, but now that he's a freelancer there's nobody to —" 

The electrical pillars that flanked the trellis and the dais, which had been set at low illumination, began to brighten with a soft white glow that warmed the dusky air and picked out each petal of the mingled roses. Their silken scent carried faintly to Brian's nose as the ceremony's officiant, a stoutly built dark-skinned United Church minister whom Hobby had introduced to his former students during the afternoon's garden party as Jane Balewa, mounted the dais with dignity and took up her position in the centre toward the back, nodding to someone at the rear of the ceremonial space. Smoothly the tone of the music changed from Debussy to a piece that Brian recognized by name but not by creator, a soaring orchestral version of _For Always._  

"Oh," April breathed, turning to follow the minister's gaze to the doorway of the manor house. Everyone else was following suit, and Brian found his own breath catching in his throat as Professor Hobby and Joe emerged, impeccably dressed in formal dress suits — dove grey for the mecha and black for the orga, with ties of a matching muted silver. Joe's left hand was entwined in the crook of Hobby's right arm, and the quick smile they shared as they walked toward the aisle that ran between the ranks of witnesses made Brian hold his own wife's hand a little more tightly. 

"By Jove!" James Drew exclaimed, irrepressible to the last: "They do look _happy_ , don't they?" 

In the east, the full moon soared free. 


	3. Peter Venkman/Egon Spengler

Peter Venkman stumbled across the floor of the firehouse bunk room clad only in his bathrobe, barely able to keep his eyes open after a hot shower and a slow thorough towelling-off to rid his skin and hair of every single trace of ectoplasmic residue. This afternoon's bust hadn't gone exactly as planned, but at least everybody was still in one piece — Ray down in the kitchen, Winston currently in the shower, Egon heaven only knew where, and Peter himself about to shrug into his pajamas and curl up in bed and sleep for about a week. 

He hadn't even made it to the dresser when a deep voice rang out sharply from the doorway behind him: "Peter!" 

Peter sighed and cast his eyes skyward in a silent plea for patience; for someone so big, Egon could move with surprising stealth when he wanted to. "Yeah, Spengler? Make it quick. I've got a hot date with Mr. Sandman in —" 

These footfalls he heard, swiftly crossing the wooden floor just before Egon's long-fingered hands closed on his shoulders and spun him around.  

"Hey!" He glared up at the much taller physicist, mouth open to protest more strongly, but the words died in his throat when he saw the emotion blazing behind Egon's ridiculous little round glasses: anger, yeah, that was understandable, but also an undercurrent of lingering fear. 

Egon shook him once, hard. "Don't you ever —" Shake. "— ever —" Shake! "— _ever_ —" SHAKE! "— do something that foolhardy again!" 

Peter held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. "Look, I get it, I shouldn't have —" 

"You're damned right you shouldn't have!" Oh wow, profanity — things had to be pretty bad for Egon to descend to that particular realm of human feeling. "If Ray had been a half-second slower off the mark, that Class Eleven would have taken your head off like a —" 

"But it didn't," Peter grinned. 

"But it could have," Egon stated flatly, and Peter really couldn't deny the accusation. 

"Egon…" He took a deep breath and risked stepping closer, to slide his arms around Egon's stiff waist and rest his chin on the scientist's chest, unleashing his most appealing puppy dog gaze. "I already admitted I was wrong, all right? And if it makes you feel better, I promise I'll never do anything like that again." 

Egon looked down at him for a long silent moment, full of consideration. "Never?" 

"Never," Peter affirmed. "Now give me a kiss and tuck me into bed, huh? I'm beat." 

Egon's eyes narrowed, his blond eyebrows rising skeptically — but Peter knew he'd already won the argument. Spengler might be one of the most complicated people on the face of the earth from an intellectual point of view, but in some ways he was amazingly easy to work around, even when he knew that Peter was perfectly willing to tell a lie to get whatever it was he wanted. It was a game they'd played for years already and one that Peter knew they'd be playing for years to come, and quite possibly for the rest of their natural lives.


	4. Future!Michael Knight/Future!KITT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in the "KnightFall" Knight Rider Future AU, which can be found here:
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/series/30580
> 
> Short premise: Michael wakes up in the 23rd century. Hijinks ensue.

“You do realize that you just arranged to meet that young lady later this evening for a sexual encounter, don’t you?” a sardonic voice with a Boston accent inquired from the region of Michael Knight’s left collarbone, even though they were about fifty-five light years away from the state of Massachusetts.

"Huh?" Michael, who had been gazing fixedly after the demurely clad but highly (from a twentieth century point of view) flirtatious girl with laughing jade eyes who'd been chatting him up for the past ten minutes and who had excused herself to "go find her mother and her sisters", snapped out of his wow-she's-hot silly grin state of mind and looked down sharply at KITT, who had just slid up next to him at the bar. "How long have you been —" 

"Ever since she initially approached you." The neatly attired humanoid simulator nodded toward the ceiling, and Michael followed his line of sight to a security camera embedded under one of the beams supporting the roof of the Soleo Station Spacer Lounge. "Really, Michael… I keep an 'eye' on you, so to speak, whenever we're separated for any significant length of time. Surely you've realized that by now?" 

"Oh yeah," Michael drawled with no stinting on sarcasm, "and believe me, buddy, I appreciate it!" Sometimes having a robotic partner who was capable of tapping into any computer system, anywhere, was as much a curse as it was a blessing. 

"Still," KITT remarked, his gaze returning thoughtfully to the girl, who was making her curvaceous way through the packed crowd toward an archway leading to another area of the lounge, "I'd say you've done quite well for yourself, all things —" 

"Listen, KITT —" Sure, he'd been caught red-handed, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to defend himself. "All I was doing was flirting. I didn't mean to give her any other impression, and you've gotta know that I'd never —" 

"Why ever not?" 

Staring down into the pale robot's amused eyes, so alien with their ebony sclera and ruby irises and pupils as deeply black as the space between the stars, Michael suspected that he was missing at least three quarters of the point of their conversation — and not for the first time. "Uh… run that by me again?" 

"Really, Michael," KITT chided again, resting his sharply dressed left elbow on the edge of the bar and idly contemplating the depths of the small glass of purple liqueur he was holding in his right hand but would never drink, "after two centuries of experience with various types of human civilization I have a fairly good idea of the distinction between social monogamy, emotional monogamy, and sexual monogamy. Tell me — do you love her?" 

"I — no! What kind of question is —" 

"Do you feel inclined to love her?" 

Michael drew a slow deep breath and took a measured sip of his beer, silently asking whatever Gods might still exist for patience. "Not emotionally, no." 

"And do you suppose that having sex with her will lead you to abandon me and settle down with her to raise her children alongside her other three husbands?" 

"I — what? No, forget I asked. I don't want to know." 

"Then I have no problem with the concept of you engaging in sexual intercourse with her." He looked up into Michael's face again, read the puzzled consternation there, and sighed softly with a little smirk. "You're a healthy young male human with a 7R+ genetic variant and a long form of the D4DR gene. If you weren't pursuing women with the goal of bedding them I'd be worried about your general state of health." 

He processed that carefully, twice, to make sure he'd heard what he thought he'd heard. "So, you have no problem with the idea of me sleeping around?" 

"I've always found that a most curious euphemism. And no, I don't, as long as you don't make a constant habit out of it." Evidently he'd finally decided to take pity on his fish-out-of-water partner, for he put down his drink and laid that hand, small and sturdy, on Michael's forearm, subtly caressing him through the thin leather of his jacket. "I'm the one you come home to, and I'm certain that I'm the one you're in love with," he said gently. "Go on and have some fun. I'll meet you back at our ship —"

"I've got a better idea." Michael finished off his beer in two quick swallows, set the empty bottle aside on the bar, and turned fully to slide his left arm around KITT's slender shoulders and step away from the bar, heading toward the exit in the opposite direction from Little Miss Flirtation. "Why don't we both go back to the ship right now and I'll show you how much the idea of monogamy appeals to me?" 

KITT dug in his heels like a small but superhumanly strong mule. "Michael, you don't have to —" 

"I know I don't." He reached down to catch hold of KITT's left hand, then raised it to his lips and kissed the backs of those elegant fingers. Given their dramatic differences in height, kissing the sim on the lips was usually impractical unless they were both horizontal or close to a handy box or a convenient set of stairs. "But suddenly everybody else in this room — hell, everybody else in the galaxy — seems a whole lot less appealing than they did ten minutes ago. Whaddaya say?" 

Faced with Michael's brightest and most charismatic smile, KITT shook his sleek head ruefully and started walking again. "I say 'yes', of course. But consider the permission I've just given you to be permanently in effect unless I specifically revoke it."  

"I'll keep that in mind," Michael growled, and slid his left hand down to give KITT's firm little ass a saucy pat and a squeeze in full view of the whole bar. Pretty girls with limpid green eyes were all very well and good, but he'd have to be crazy to forget that the finest treasure of all was right here at his side — and always would be, in one physical form or another.


	5. Bob/Megabyte, with Hexadecimal on the side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place near the end of S2.

"Never should have let you get this close," Bob muttered to the darkened bedroom in the tone of one roundly cursing a hated enemy, or perhaps merely his own stupidity. 

"But you have." A voice as sensual as black velvet wrapped itself around every pixel of his skin — even the most carefully hidden ones — gliding, caressing, bringing him to flushed and aching life as a broad body covered his back, not quite touching him but pressing him into the mattress nonetheless. "And tell me, now that you've sampled what I have to offer, are you inclined to terminate our… association?" 

The slimly built blue-skinned sprite closed his eyes tighter and trembled for a full three nanoseconds before whispering savagely into the pillow: "Dell no! Just…" 

Claws traced his left hip and over the curve of that buttock, drawing the most delicate lines of life-force to the surface and turning the tremble into a full shudder. "Yes, Bob?" 

"Don't stop." He tried to make it sound like an order and just ended up moaning against his own clenched fist. "Don't — oh, _User —!_ " 

Against the nape of his arched neck, a laugh that was more a growl, and then Megabyte got down to work in earnest. 

Watching through her mirror, Hexadecimal snarled furiously and reflected that Megabyte, once he got his teeth into a new toy, was inclined to feed on its energy for hours — but the Guardian had been _hers_ first! Clearly it was time to teach her "dear" brother a lesson he would never forget…


	6. Shawn McCormick/KITT

Two years, ten months and twenty-three days ago, Shawn McCormick had been a rookie officer in the San Antonio PD — young, smart, almost painfully eager, with a bright future ahead of her and a new circle of friendly colleagues that promised to hold her steady and never let her fall. After the keen loneliness of the three previous years following the death of her single-parent father, she'd been so happy to find a haven of warmth and commitment, a place to call "home" at last. 

And she'd been an idiot, so blind and so trusting, a naive fool who never saw the bullet coming until it was buried in her brain. 

Two years, ten months and four days ago she'd met KITT for the first time — and been singularly unimpressed by his abrasive and defiant attitude. His statement that his chip, now an integral part of her brain structure, would _"simply have to be removed"_ had gone a long way toward convincing her that he was far more worthy of the term _"repugnant"_ than she was, and she'd treated him accordingly. 

Two years, ten months and two days ago she'd officially signed on with the Knight Foundation as KITT's driver and partner, in spite of her own probability calculations that they only stood a 34.678% chance of being able to form a stable working relationship — and most of that due to the chip architecture they shared rather than any personal compatibility. KITT was, as she'd told Michael Knight, a pig-headed arrogant chauvinistic individual, and furthermore he had a metaphorical chip on his "shoulder" roughly as big as the state of Texas itself. Reviewing the files she was able to pull up concerning how he'd been treated in the last few days of his "life" back in the late 1980s, she had to admit that she couldn't blame him for being resentful and antagonistic after being abandoned by the man he'd been created to serve and then treated like useless non-sentient inventory following nearly a decade of loyal and efficient service… oh, she'd understood his anger well enough, because now it was effectively her own. 

In the course of the next two years, ten months and three days she'd worked out a balance between the parts of her personality that were KITT's and the parts that were her own — and come to the realization that they were entwined beyond her power to separate. She'd also learned to navigate the landscape of his personality and discovered, to her considerable and ongoing surprise, that the scenery was on occasion both dramatic and strangely beautiful, even if the highways through it took some whiplash-inducing twists and turns. 

Twenty days ago she'd met the avatar that Brad Adair had created to embody KITT's consciousness in Virtual Reality, and had an immediate sense of the rightness of it, so tall and slim and quick and idiosyncratically handsome… and of the way its human aspect sank into new layers of her, turning and clicking like a secret key custom-created to fit a lock she hadn't even realized existed. 

Nineteen days ago she'd kissed him for the first time, tasting his cruel lips to administer a nearly fatal cure: a utilitarian act, a necessary act, a tactic in battle… but later, in her dark and lonely bed, she couldn't deny that there'd been other elements to the contact that it was better not to examine too closely, not while the agony of nearly losing him forever was impressed so deeply upon her soul — and quite possibly not ever, if she valued the integrity of their working relationship. 

Ten days ago she'd had her memory wiped and had discovered, to her consternation, that she was in possession of a car that thought, and talked, and fought ferociously on her behalf… and was both patient and gentle with her constant perplexity, binding her wounds of fearful uncertainty with his ready wit, guiding her through the unknown world as gallantly as a stereotypical knight of old. At first she'd though that the source of that expressive tenor voice must be human, and she'd found herself wanting to meet him with a pang of longing that tapped back into depths of feeling she could not consciously remember. 

Five days ago her memory had been restored and she'd put all the pieces of the equation together. It had temporarily broken her ability to calculate when she first fully grasped it, sending her probability engine into a tailspin: how, after all, was she supposed to plug in statistical factors that had never previously existed, anywhere? How much data was there on human beings falling in love with AIs, much less taking steps to make that attraction manifest? 

It had taken her five days to come to the conclusion that she couldn't afford to throw away this opportunity for lack of hard data. Brad had said that KITT loved her, and he was the person in the best position to make that determination. And if that was true… well, it certainly wouldn't be the first time that she had hurled herself into the unknown with KITT as her wingman, trusting his speed and certainty to save her from a catastrophic fall. 

And three point one seconds ago she'd kissed his avatar for the second time, straddling his virtual lap on an elegant couch in a secret room in the VR, holding his head steady in both her hands and closing her eyes and pouring a storm-surge of feeling into the chipped link they had always shared. She'd felt the shock reverberating back, followed by a rush of quicksilver calculations — and now she drew back a little and opened her eyes again to find that his own had closed, his sculpted features a mask of concentration as he simultaneously scanned his own internal database and conducted an Internet search. She didn't blame him for being distracted: it was exactly what she would have done herself under equivalent circumstances. 

She waited both patiently and impatiently, her rational faculties fully cognizant of what he was doing, her mortal substance hungrily burning — until his calculations flowed to a stop with numbers in the green and he smiled slightly, opening his alien eyes to regard her with expression of amazement and pleasure… and something much more darkly playful, a quality of willingness that woke the carefully restrained fire in her to roaring flame. 

For once there was no need for words between them. She leaned into him as he entwined her in slender arms as strong as steel and locked her in, kissing her in return with subtle skill distilled from a thousand assimilated sources — and for the first time in nearly six years, she knew that she had truly come home. 


End file.
